Yearly Archives: 2001

Washington wants to keep its friends, reports Hugo Young, but on its terms I do not think that many of us, even now, completely understand what has happened to the United States. We saw the pictures, we know the numbers, we heard the president’s vows to smoke Osama bin Laden out of his cave, and […]

ATHLETICS Martin Gillingham Let me tell you a true story. There’s this national leader who approaches the president of a global sports body and pleads him to stage his world championships in his country. “But you haven’t got a stadium big enough,” replies the sports boss. “I know,” says the politician, “but if you give […]

Marianne Merten “Let’s talk about sex”, goes the popular song. But organisers of an international sex tourism conference found the chambers of Parliament are not the place for such frankness. Instead, about 100 delegates – ranging from a matron to an activist, with a smattering of men – relocated to a corner of historic Cape […]

Mail & Guardian reporter The South African Revenue Service (Sars) set the seemingly arbitrary date of October 1 this year as the date that capital gains tax (CGT) came into effect and the base cost of units is determined. But the date turned out to be anything but arbitrary. As fate would have it, just […]

Paul Kirk A Durban bus company that has gone into liquidation claims a spate of hijackings crippled it. The government-run KZT Transport – which was the major provider of public transport to blacks during apartheid – was half-owned by the Bantu Development Corporation. The company’s operations in rural areas were later subsidised by the KwaZulu-Natal […]

Barry Streek Controversy-dogged land tenure legislation is to be tabled in Parliament next year, after a week-long national conference on land rights at which the government hopes to forge consensus among conflicting actors in the land field. The legislation is intended to give tenants, living under chiefs’ tenure, rights guaranteed in the Constitution. Seen as […]

David Macfarlane Fundamental conflicts over teachers’ working conditions remain unresolved, despite the averting this week of a strike that would have disrupted the matric exams now under way. The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) remains firm in its refusal to sign the public sector wage agreement. And future negotiations involving teachers and the government […]

MORE than 24 000 people have already died of Aids-related diseases at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital since 1998, hospital officials announced this week. The Sowetan newspaper reported that the mortality rate at the hospital had more than doubled over the past decade, with a recorded increase from six to 15%. Dr Alan Karstaedt, head of […]

BRITISH Airways (BA) has slashed its fares by as much as 23% for flights between Harare and London during the rest of October and November, the official Ziana news agency said. “British Airways appreciates the financial difficulties being faced by Zimbabweans who wish to travel,” BA marketing coordinator Clare Wingfield told the state-run news agency. […]

Khadija Magardie A newly released study on attitudes towards foreigners, particularly refugees, shows that public awareness on the human rights of asylum-seekers has still to take root on South African soil. Earlier this year, the World Conference against Racism attempted to raise the issue of xenophobia, or anti-foreigner sentiment in many parts of the world, […]